


Your Ashes Come Home to Me

by Abagail_Snow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Book: Catching Fire, Book: Mockingjay, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:39:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abagail_Snow/pseuds/Abagail_Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she’s delivered to District 13, Katniss Everdeen is returned the wrong district token.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Ashes Come Home to Me

The hovercraft jerks abruptly, and I can hear the creaking of landing gear as it locks into place.  We’ve been flying for hours it seems — hovercrafts aren’t generally equipped for long range travel, and it takes my body a while to adjust to the fact that we’re no longer moving.  We’re gathered in the haul, where the floor drops out from the middle of the fuselage, forming a ramp to the tarmac below.

Now that we’ve reached our destination, my senses are on heightened alert.  If I’m going to plan my escape, I’ll have to know the layout of the compound.  Usually I’d rely on landmarks to track my whereabouts, but as we file down the ramp, I see that we’ve landed on a flat, seemingly endless airfield.  The ground is covered with concrete, which reflects the sun and blinds my view.  If I squint hard enough, I can almost make out a line of trees in the distance.  The woods.  This will be my sanctuary if I can reach it.

Along the edges of the airfield, there are a few scattered buildings, similar to the Justice Building that I’ve only seen on television.  They’re collapsed, abandoned, nearly rubble.  I imagine District 12 looks similar, now that I’ve caused every inch of it to burn.

So this is District 13.

The crew and Plutarch lead us across the field, towards vast emptiness, but they walk with authority, so we follow.  Gale and Finnick flank each of my sides, and Haymitch falls behind, picking at the fresh bandages that cover his face from the wounds I left with my fingernails.

We stop at a hatch, which has been camouflaged beneath the asphalt.  It lifts with ease and we’re ushered down another staircase that takes us beneath the earth.  The transformation is startling. 

On the surface, District 13 looks to be a place that would make the Seam in District 12 look luxurious, but below, everything is sleek, and modern, with technology that would rival the Capitol.  I realize it then, the entire city is underground.  That’s why no one knows of Thirteen’s existence, because they can’t see it.

There’s order here.  Everyone dresses in the same government issued clothing and they travel the corridors in neat, opposing lines.  No one is still for long.  They keep busy here.  They’re efficient.  It’s a complete contrast to the languid attitude of the Capitol.

I was cleared by the doctor in the medical ward on board the hovercraft — for my physical injuries at least.  My psych evaluation was inconclusive, and will require additional observation, but nothing that will require me to be admitted for now.  Instead, I am taken directly to my quarters, where my mother and Prim are waiting.

Prim greets me with tearful hugs and wide, enthusiastic smiles that make her look mad in her joyfulness.  She relays the the story of their rescue from District 12.  Victor’s Village was left untouched during the fire bombings, but certainly my family was a top priority for the Peacekeepers to capture.  I don’t know what I would have done if my family had been taken too.  Thankfully Gale got to them in time.

I hug her tightly and try to feel happy.  I’m with my family.  We’re safe.  I feel hollow instead.

Prim shows me the apartment.  It’s small, with bare walls, three cots in the corner, a small sitting area at the far wall, and a set of drawers.  It’s not a home, it’s a storage compartment.  The tour doesn’t last long. 

Prim also explains the numbers that have been printed on her arm.  I look down to inspect my arms, which are still heavily bandaged from where Johanna sliced the tracking device from my flesh. 

District 13 has doctors from the Capitol, but they wouldn’t waste their rations on erasing my scars and making me beautiful.  They treated my wounds enough to stop the infection, but my sun burnt skin and torn flesh remains.  I prefer it this way.  Now everyone that looks at me will see the danger I possess.  I don’t have to hide anymore.

“You can follow my schedule today,” Prim suggests cheerfully, but her eyes flash with horror at the sight of me.

There’s a knock at the door and it slides open, revealing one of the crew members that I vaguely recognizes from the hovercraft, along with Plutarch Heavensbee. 

“Your personal effects,” he says, and hands me a small, sealed plastic bag.

I don’t trust him, and my eyes never leave him, even as my fingers inspect the bag.  When I left for the Arena, I didn’t have any effects — only my Mockinjay pin, and based off the shape and weight of the mysterious object inside, it certainly isn’t that.

I rip it open and the small gold locket falls to the floor at my feet.  Peeta’s locket.  The token that he brought into the Arena was to show solidarity with the alliance, but really it was a weapon for him to use against me.  He wanted to remind me of what I was fighting for.  Who I was fighting for.  That my life would go on without him in it.  He wanted me to know that sacrificing myself for him wasn’t worth it. 

I scramble to pick it up, my thumb catching the clasp to pry it open.  The pictures are still intact, and Prim, my mother, and Gale all smile back at me.

I laugh, bitterly, so hard that I begin to cry.  Peeta got what he wanted.

I’m safe with my family now, able to start the life away from the Capitol that I’ve always wanted.  And Peeta will be dead, as soon as the Capitol is finished with him. 

I wish that I was dead.  I should be dead.

Peeta should be here.  He should be safe.  I shouldn’t have left him behind that night.  We should have run away.  Found a cave out in the jungle and locked ourselves away like we did in the first Games.  I’d be able to keep him safe then, and when the final cannon sounded, it would be because this time, I swallowed the Nightlock and ended it all. 

Instead, I left him behind.  Thinking that  _I_  was on the suicide mission, and that only his pearl would bring me comfort as I died.

I reach for my belt, for the parachute with the spile and medicine, where I had stowed the precious pearl away.  My belt has been removed, along with the parachute, probably from when I was admitted in the medical ward.  I pick up the torn plastic bag and rip it at the seam until it’s a flat plastic sheet.  It’s empty.

“Where’s the rest of it?” I say.  My voice isn’t demanding, as I intended it to be, it’s frantic.

“The rest of what?” Plutarch says.  “You went in with your district token, and that’s what we’re returning to you.”  Recognition dawns across his face.  “Oh.  Your mockingjay pin.  That’s being polished and will be returned to you with a special purpose —.”

“No, no!” I shout.  I couldn’t care less about seeing that mockingjay pin again.  I don’t want to be the Mockingjay, I don’t want to save Panem.  I want to save Peeta.  I need to save Peeta.  “My parachute,” I say.  “Where is it?”

Plutarch seems confused, but he nods to the attendant that has escorted him.  He’s carrying a box, and opens it to reveal all the contents that Finnick, Beetee, and I had collected in the Arena.  District 13 throws out nothing, it seems, and everything inside will be repurposed.

He picks up the parachute, which is still bundled to use as a pocket.  He pulls out the tube of medicine first, and says he’ll need to confiscate it for the medical ward.  The spile I can keep, since they don’t tap the trees in the forest, and they have no use for jewelry, so the pearl is returned to me as well.

I pinch the pearl tightly between my fingers.  It was unharmed from the fight in the jungle, and there’s not a scratch on its perfectly smooth surface.

Peeta will be safe if I can protect him.  I will protect him, I decide, pressing the tiny pearl against my chest where my heart beats.

“Did you know if you put enough pressure on coal, it will turn into pearls?” I say to Plutarch, and he nods happily in agreement.

I don’t smile though, already I am planning my escape, my mission.  I will save Peeta from the Capitol.


End file.
